A strange world covered with metallic clouds has been spotted in the cosmos. It is called LTT9779 b and is an extremely reflective exoplanet.
The exoplanet is about the size of Neptune, making it the largest “mirror” of the Universe that we know of today,” writes the European Space Agency, whose Cheops exoplanet satellite made the observation.
Cheops, short for “CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite,” is a mission aimed at closely studying other solar systems and better categorizing the mysterious planets they harbor. India is going for the Moon, by the way.
A mirror planet, never seen before
Cheops uses a single high-tech telescope to observe exoplanets in deep space while waiting for these distant spheres to transit in front of their respective stars.
This temporarily dims the star, allowing astronomers to analyze the tiny changes in light that ultimately determine the size, density, and other characteristics of these exoplanets.
By observing LTT9779 b, located about 262 light-years away, Cheops was able to see the strong combination of light coming from both the planet and its star, as opposed to light coming only from the star (when LTT9779 b was transiting behind it).
The Earth reflects about 30% of sunlight. But LTT9779 b reflects 80% of the light from its star.
LTT9779 b is not only extremely bright. It is also extremely hot. The planet orbits its star in only 19 hours (unlike Earth, which, as is known, orbits the Sun every 365 days).
Never before has a planet the size of Neptune, which is about four times wider than Earth, been seen so close to a star.
“It’s a planet that shouldn’t exist,” Vivien Parmentier, an astronomer at the Côte d’Azur Observatory in France who also worked on the research, explained in a statement. “We expect planets like this one to have their atmosphere obliterated by their star, leaving behind bare rock.”
However, LTT9779 b has defied expectations. And the researchers suspect that metallic clouds make it possible.
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